Lorraine Wilde

My community includes the Lummi Nation who make efforts to ensure the longevity of salmon runs through restoration, education and teaching others how to steward the land. The non-native community also has ways to ensure food sovereignty. Whatcom Land Trust helps preserve land in Whatcom County to protect habitat and farmers, Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association also restores habitat by doing ecological restoration and monitoring. In my community, organizations also come into schools to teach our children about gardening, cooking and nutrition. Our community supported agriculture (CSA) and farmers markets are another way to practice food sovereignty. We also grow our own garden each year. If we could not access these foods, we would eat much more processed (and less nutritious) foods and our health as a community would suffer. We would have more health problems and not live as long. More folks, especially those that rely on the food bank, would go hungry and have poorer nutrition and health.